Something rotten in the state of Dawkins (and something gullible)

Regular readers will know that Mouse is no fan of Richard Dawkins.  His refusal to accept that it is legitimate to have a difference of opinion from him makes it difficult to engage with his arguments from where Mouse is sitting.

So it was with a little Mousey eyebrow raised very high indeed that Mouse read about the goings on at richarddawkins.net.  Ruth Gledhill has by far the best write up, with an interview with the big man himself as well.  Mouse will not go into the 'he said, she said' details of the issue, but what it adds up to is that some horrible things were said on the discussion forum at richarddawkins.net, to the extent that the whole forum had to be suspended.  Those who have said these awful things are atheists, with whom Dawkins is not pleased.

It would only be the most foolish Christian who would look at that situation as if it could not happen on a Christian discussion forum, but Mouse hopes that there is a certain bringing down to earth that may result.  Dawkins standard line is that there would be no conflict in the world if we were all clear thinking rationalists, and the tag-line for the official Dawkins website is 'An oasis of clear thinking'.  Yet it seems that clear thinking rationalists are just as capable of behaving terribly to each other as anyone else.

Just as we suspected really.

Now all of this was causing a stir when the spoof Christian website Christwire took credit for the incident, claiming to have brought down the website by the power of prayer.  The site is pretty clearly a spoof, yet the New Humanist was taken in, and gleefully announced that this was the latest example of Christian stupidity.  It was soon pointed out to them, and they updated to admit their error.  However, they rather ungraciously added that they had seen crazier things from Christian websites.

Update:  Richard Dawkins has now apologised for his earlier comments.  This story seems to have more twists than Chubby Checker, and Mouse has rather lost the inclination to follow it.

Power 2010 - a big fat disappointment

There was a lot of excitement about the Power 2010 initiative.  It was heralded as a major initiative in direct engagement with the electorate designed to renew British democracy.  Quite an ambition.

The concept was pretty simple.  Anyone could submit ideas for democratic renewal and then anyone could vote on them.  The top five ideas would become a pledge which would form the basis of a campaign leading up to the next election.  The campaign is asking for people to sign up to the pledge to show mass support for the initiatives.

So why is Mouse disappointed with the outcome of all this.  Well, for a number of reasons.


The ideas generated are either odd or the tip of a complex constitutional issue.  None are new or creative.  PR and a written constitution are constitutionalists hobby horses but are not, in fact, in demand from anyone else.  Whilst the Power 2010 campaign can claim over 100,000 votes, this is still pretty small considering it had huge press in the political world.  Just compare it with the X-Factor to see where the general public's heart really is.  And 100,000 people did not vote for PR, although as the top choice it did receive more votes than anything else.  However, to give another sense of scale is that David Cameron's direct democracy ideas include the idea that a petition of 100,000 would trigger a referendum.  This effort would have failed.


As for scrapping the ID card and rolling back the database state, Mouse thinks that is all well and good but nothing to do with democratic renewal.  If anything this demonstrates the very problem of democracy.  People vote for odd things.

Replacing the House of Lords with an elected chamber seems sensible enough, as Labour only got half way through Lords reform, but has much wider implications.  It would establish two competing chambers with equal democratic mandates in Parliament.  

English votes for English laws sounds fair again, but just points to the oddities of having regional government in different degrees for different regions.  It is, once again a much wider question.

So the outcome is not a simple set of changes which could be made, but the start of a much wider debate about how these things could be taken forward.

The other main reason is that they seem to be trying hoodwink us into believing that more people support this than really do.  The first trick is the 100,000 claim, which refers to the overall number of votes, rather than those who voted for these five initiatives.  The second is that they are now asking people to sign the pledge, but they are asking you to sign it even if you do not agree with all the ideas.  What kind of madness is that?  How can you sign a pledge for something you don't agree with?  You are given the option to say when you sign up which bits you agree with, but Mouse is pretty confident that they will use the total number of signatures at the end.  They are already giving a running commentary.

So all in all, Mouse is pretty disappointed.  We don't have a set of ideas which can be implemented by an incoming government, they are either nothing to do with democratic renewal or well worn thorny debates and the pet topics of constitutional geeks.

Mouse's view is that there is only one thing which will renew our democracy.  A general election.  The reason we are unhappy with our political leaders is because they have become tired and complacent in office.  A general election is the solution.

Tim Montgomerie on Christians in politics and the 'faith vote'

Lets just start by saying that Tim Montgomerie is a pretty smart cookie.  He is the man behind ConservativeHome, but a whole lot more besides.  Recently he was the focus of a piece in the FT which stoked fears that there was an evangelical Christian take-over of the Conservative Partly in the pipeline.

Tim has responded with an excellent piece in the Guardian's Comment Is Free section.  He points out a few simple truths about the 'faith vote', such as that Labour's disproportionate portion of the Muslim vote is probably due to their dominance in inner cities, whilst the Conservative Party's higher proportion of the Christian vote is probably due to the bias of both to rural communities.

Montgomerie sensibly concludes that the religious vote will be relatively small, but important at the next election and challenges the Conservative Party to respond.

This comes just days after the Labour government's Scottish Secretary has argued that Labour will need to win the religious vote, although he offered very little detail of what this actually means.

Mouse's view is that they are both right, however, it would be very foolish to think that the 'religious vote' is a single bloc vote.  Religious people have the same concerns as everyone else for the most part, and it will be very difficult for governments to come up with distinct policy initiatives which are designed to appeal to religious people.

It is also far too late for a party to try to come up with new ideas to change voters minds.  The Christian voter has a number of resources to help them decide where to place their cross.  The latest is the 'Make the Cross Count' initiative, which aims to provide resources for churches in the run up to the election.

As the election gets underway, Mouse will offer up his thoughts on the parties.  In the mean time, he'll get researching the actual policy platforms of the two parties.

Job cuts at the Church Mission Society

CMS is the largest Anglican-based mission agency in Britain, and Mouse is very fond of it.  So it is with a very heavy heart that Mouse reads that deep job losses are looming.  CMS have announced that they are losing 14 out of 77.5 roles, representing almost 20% of staff.  In addition, the CMS report states that a further eight roles are likely to be lost in phases in the coming two years.

The press release blames 'outside forces' of the recession and a pension deficit for the financial strain which has led to this.  Mouse notes, however, from a quick look on the Charity Commission website, that CMS's expenditure has exceeded its income for each year in the past five, with the exception of 2007 where the organisation almost exactly broke even.  In total losses over this period amounted to over £5m.

Whilst it is true that the financial markets will undoubtedly have caused havoc with pension funds, trustees must also bear some responsibility for allowing deficits to grow out of control.

This situation is similar to many other Christian charities.  Mouse reported last year on job losses at Christian Aid and Tearfund, and wondered at the time why CMS wasn't putting more information out.

Mouse is, therefore, pleased in a strange sort of way that CMS has put this notice out.  Their accounts show that they have been in financial difficultly for some time, and this announcement is the latest in a line of redundancies at the agency.  Previously, CMS have not announced the job losses publicly so it has been hard from the outside to gauge the scale of the problems.  This latest announcement shows that the crisis is serious, which will ultimately only be solved by significantly increasing income.

Friday round up

Here's my round up from the blogosphere.  Ten of the best from the blogs this week.

1. Ruth Gledhill on the richarddawkins.net nastiness

2. Clayboy on swearing and the art of the non-apology

3. Heresy Corner on moral and immoral chocolate

4. Big Circumstance on whether the Methodist Bride has been left at the alter by the CofE

5. George Pitcher is not impressed with the secularist view of the role of faith in politics

6. Bishop Nick Baines on the resignation of Margot Kasmann (and Bishop Alan Wilson's view is worth a read)

7. The Church Times blog on evangelism and the charts

8. Cranmer on St Gerry of Belfast

9. Faith Central on the halal burger

10. Andrew Brown on what believers want from God

Methodists debate whether the CofE is even interested in a union

Mouse is pretty dismayed that we're not hearing more from the good old CofE in repsonse to the President of the Methodist Conference's speech at General Synod.  In that speech he made it clear once again that the Methodist Church is prepared to cease to exist in the interest of mission.  He also challenged the Synod on the CofE's commitment to the covenant.

And the response?  Deafening silence.

The talk on methodist blogs is about whether they are once again the bride left at the altar.  Mouse has received comments from Methodists along the lines of "we're not surprised" and "so the CofE aren't interested".

Now the President, Vice President and General Secretary of the Methodist Conference have issued a pastoral letter, copied below.  It explicitly discusses the possibility that the CofE aren't serious about unity with this section:

So what happens if other churches are not prepared to be changed in order to become more effective in mission with us? Rather than being groups of Methodist people in a new and wider church, we shall continue as a Methodist people in a separate Methodist Church faithfully trusting in God’s continuing leading of us.

The Joint Implementation Committee have not said a dickie bird, and nor has the Church of England.  In fact, the JIC's website shows precisely nothing since 2005, although that may just be a case of failing to keep the website up-to-date.

Its certainly too late now to simply respond to the Synod speech with a press statement - something that would have taken the CofE press office about 15 minutes to write.  But all is not lost.  We have two opportunities.  The first comes when Rowan Williams addresses the Methodist Conference in June.  He must reaffirm the commitment to the covenant.  Of course, in order to do that convincingly he'll have to actually do something in the mean time to make sure the CofE end of the relationship is active.

The second opportunity will come at the next session of General Synod in July.  There is still a chance to get something on the agenda.  It has been suggested to Mouse that the only way to get it on the agenda would be for lots of people to get in touch and ask for it to be put there.  So if you're interested, the agenda is controlled by the Business Committee.  Contact details are on the CofE website.  For those clergy and bishops who read this blog, your voices will carry more weight.  This is your moment to make sure we don't miss a golden opportunity to take Christian unity forwards a huge step.



A Pastoral Letter to the Methodist People from the President and Vice-President of the Conference and the General Secretary


(following the address of the President and Vice-President to the General Synod of the Church of England on 11th February 2010)


And are we yet alive? Our answer, despite some recent press speculation to the contrary, is a resounding “Yes!”. We have seen the evidence in various ways through our complementary roles. As President and Vice-President we have represented the care, oversight, authority and support of the Conference as we have visited local churches and situations in different parts of the connexion. We have seen the Methodist people being faithful and the Spirit at work in them and through them. We mentioned some examples in our address to the General Synod. As General Secretary, Martyn is responsible for leading the development of the mission of the Methodist Church. He too has seen evidence of energy being released amongst us.


We are all convinced that God is not finished with the people called Methodist yet. We began as a discipleship movement within the wider church, a society of people seeking holiness and engaging in worship and mission. In Wesley’s time and through succeeding generations we have continually adapted to circumstances to fulfil that calling as effectively as possible. It is still Our Calling today. And mission has never been more needed than it is now. We live in a world ravaged by war and poverty, and torn apart by questions of how we care for the natural environment and the morality of financial systems. We live in a world where people need to hear the word of God in a language they can understand, where they need to see the love of God through people like us and experience it as good news for themselves. We live in a world where not enough people are being attracted and formed into disciples of Jesus Christ, responding to the promptings of the Spirit.


Responding to situations like this, allowing God to transform us so that we can be most effective in doing so, supporting each other in that through our interconnections, is what Methodism has always been about. We best honour those who have gone before us by doing the equivalent in our time and our circumstances of what they did in theirs. It is our DNA as a people to be a group of disciples who are committed to glorifying God in worship, to holiness and to being obedient and active in mission. We are therefore delighted to see an increasing interest in and commitment to discipleship amongst us.


We believe that God has a role for us in this mission, and we are increasingly embracing it. We have about 265,000 ‘card-carrying’ members, and that number has been decreasing because of the age-profile of our members. But more churches are making more members each year; a quarter of our churches are growing; the numbers worshipping with us on Sundays and, increasingly, mid-week is rising; fresh expressions are starting to flourish; we have regular contact with over 800,000 people; and we are part of a growing world-wide Methodist communion of over 70 million. There is a growing self-confidence amongst us accompanied by an appropriate humility about ourselves, and a releasing of energy for mission.


But we are not the whole of the church, and we cannot do it all by ourselves. So we have voted consistently over the years for unity schemes that are designed to increase the whole church’s effectiveness in mission. This is not a death wish, but a desire to be obedient and a willingness to be transformed. We can countenance ceasing to exist as a separate Church because we know that we will still be the Methodist people within a wider Church.


As our major statement on the nature and mission of the Church Called to Love and Praise put it in 1999 “the British Methodist Church may cease to exist as a separate Church entity during the twenty-first century, if continuing progress towards Christian unity is made”. Methodism will still contribute some of the riches of its own distinctive history and mission to any future church. We know from that history that we can be the Methodist people either in our own separate church or in some wider expression of the universal church. Helping to create a wider expression of the universal church and becoming part of it will require not just us but other churches to be prepared to move forward together and to leave some things behind in the process for the sake of the Kingdom. So it is not a question of Methodists being submerged or absorbed in the Church of England or any of our other partners. It is not a matter of Methodists returning to the Anglican fold, but of seeing whether together we are prepared to become a ‘new fold’.


This is not just true of our relationship with the Church of England. We have also signed a Covenant with other churches in Wales, and recently a partnership with other churches in Scotland. We have many local partnerships with other churches, the United Reformed Church in particular. And we are all part of wider denominational groupings. For example, the world-wide Methodist communion is over 70 million strong and the world wide Anglican communion about 78 million. Both are faced with questions of how they cohere in the 21st century, and how they deal with situations where there are competing and even contradictory convictions within them. In addressing these we have a lot to share with each other.


When we addressed the General Synod it was only the second time that the President of the Conference had done so; the first since the Covenant between the Methodist Church and the Church of England was signed in the presence of Her Majesty the Queen in 2003; and, importantly, the first time the Vice-President and the president had been invited to address the Synod together. What we were saying to the General Synod was that Methodists have always been committed to unity in order to create greater effectiveness in worship and mission. We said that thinking like this comes naturally from our spirituality. We approach our Covenant with the Church of England in the light of the Covenant Service in our Worship Book which we pray each year. We were gently but urgently asking the General Synod whether the Church of England was prepared to make the same commitment and allow itself to be transformed for the sake of the gospel. And what we say to the Church of England we say to our other partners.


So what happens if other churches are not prepared to be changed in order to become more effective in mission with us? Rather than being groups of Methodist people in a new and wider church, we shall continue as a Methodist people in a separate Methodist Church faithfully trusting in God’s continuing leading of us. We could do that, and we currently do. But even as a separate church we shall have to continue with our commitment to co-operate with others in mission wherever possible and to whatever extent it is possible.


Whether co-operating with others or allowing a wider expression of the universal church to come into existence will require a lot of working together in mission locally. Doing that will throw up some obstacles that will have to be removed and some issues that will have to be resolved if mission is not to be hampered. Some of those include matters of interchangeability of ministries, common decision-making structures, the role of women in the church, and how oversight is embodied. Much work has been done on these and some people will have to be asked to keep working at them on our behalf. When we signed the Covenant we committed ourselves to working to remove any obstacles to visible communion so far as our relationship with the Church of England is concerned. Any solutions will have to be agreed by all of us in due course and by due procedure. But in the interim we must all keep striving to engage as effectively as possible in worship and mission.


We have found the Methodist people in good heart, and an increasing sense of the energy of God’s love being released amongst us. We are a people of one book, the Bible. We allow the gospel to both comfort and challenge us. We let the love of God both confirm and transform us in the body of Christ through the Spirit.


We are yet alive. We shall be alive in the future in whatever form God wills. God has not finished with us yet!


The Revd David Gamble


President of the Conference


Dr Richard M Vautrey


Vice-President of the Conference


The Revd Dr Martyn D Atkins


General Secretary


[End of letter]

A Christian No.1 this Easter?

A group has appeared on Facebook aiming to get a Christian song to No.1 for Easter.  The inspiration comes from a similar initiative which stole the Christmas No.1 slot from the usual X-Factor winner by organising over half a million people to buy a copy of Rage Against the Machine's 'Killing in the Name of'.

This time the single being promoted is 'History Maker' by Delerious.  The Facebook page says that the organisers are not connected with the band.  The group seems to have been started on Sunday, yet at the time of writing the page has over 8,500 fans, and rising very fast.  With plenty of time to go, Mouse wouldn't be at all surprised if they pulled this one off.

Mouse reckons this is a good idea, and is ready to download the song onto his gramophone.  The question is whether we will now see a rival single from the British Humanist Association.

Many thanks to fellow Mouse Gillian Marchant who brought this initiative to Mouse's attention, and for those who don't know the song, here's a live version.

Terry Vs Tiger - a lesson in public humility

Mouse finally got round to listening to a week old episode of the Sunday program podcast yesterday, which featured a discussion on morality in football in the wake of the John Terry news storm.  For those who missed it, this was the news that John Terry had an affair with a teammate's ex-fiance, and was sacked as England captain in light of the incident.

On the other side of the pond, the biggest news story of the moment is the Tiger Woods sex scandal-athon. The seemingly never-ending string of women who claim to have had an affair with the married father of two have started to go quieter, and Woods has broken his silence with a public apology.

And this is where Mouse wanted to chip in.  Woods' apology draws on his Buddhist upbringing with the following quote:

Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security, and it teaches me to stop following every impulse and learn restraint. Obviously, I lost track of what I was taught.

The Faith Central blog points out that his apology is almost a carbon copy of Bill Clinton's apology after the Monica Lewinsky affair, and that Clinton also used religious references, by reading from a Jewish prayer.

What struck Mouse is that he could not imagine John Terry, or any other British figure for that matter, making a public apology like Woods did.    Its up to you to decide whether you think Woods was being genuine or not, but that is not the point.  The reason Mouse draws the comparison is because it makes a point about public morality and the place of religion in it.

There are examples in British public life of people who have found God out of their disgrace.  Jonathan Aitken springs to mind.  However, the casual religious references are unthinkable.  Perhaps a cynical British public would simply cry 'hypocrisy' all the louder.  But then again, perhaps not.

Gay marriage - the next division in the church?

Mouse had, perhaps naively, been thinking that developments in the church recently would be shifting the territory from talk of division to talk of unity.

There is a chance that divisions in the Church of England could be turned into a story about the unity of Anglo-Catholics and Catholics, if only we could tell the story correctly.  And the President of the Methodist Conference has raised talk of renewed energy behind the eventual union between the Methodist and Anglican churches.

So what we really don't need is a new source of division being thrown into the mix.

Today's Times carries a letter from a Bishop, five former Bishops and two professors calling for gay marriage to be recognised in the church.  The text of the letter is copied below.  It is measured in tone, focused on the issues at hand.  Whilst it does stray close to an accusatory tone towards the Lords Spiritual, Mouse thinks it stops short.  In addition, The Times reports that Bishops in the Lords will not oppose and amendment to the Equalities Bill ending the ban on gay marriage in church.

Mouse is now praying that gay marriage does not now become a source of bitter division within the Church.  Whilst the debate on gay marriage is emotive for many who's lives are affected, it is at its heart a debate about the interpretation of scripture.  It would be a devastating blow if a difference of opinion on theology were to become a polarised argument with one side accusing the other of being heretics and the other retorting that they must be bigots.




Sir, 


The Civil Partnership Act 2004 prohibits civil partnerships from being registered in any religious premises in Great Britain. Three faith communities — Liberal Judaism, the Quakers, and the Unitarians — have considered this restriction prayerfully and decided in conscience that they wish to register civil partnerships on their premises. An amendment to the Equality Bill, to allow this, was debated in the House of Lords on January 25. It was opposed by the Bishops of Winchester and Chichester on the grounds that, if passed, it would put unacceptable pressure on the Church of England. The former said that “churches of all sorts really should not reduce or fudge, let alone deny, the distinction” between marriage and civil partnership.


In the same debate, the bishops were crucial in defeating government proposals to limit the space within which religious bodies are exempt from anti-discrimination law. They see that as a fundamental matter of conscience. But it is inconsistent to affirm the spiritual independence of the Church of England and simultaneously to deny the spiritual independence of the three small communities who seek this change for themselves (and not for anybody else).


The bishops’ “slippery slope” argument is invalid. Straight couples have the choice between civil marriage and religious marriage. Gay couples are denied a similar choice. To deny people of faith the opportunity of registering the most important promise of their lives in their willing church or synagogue, according to its liturgy, is plainly discriminatory. In the US it would be unconstitutional under the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law . . . prohibiting the free exercise . . . of religion.


The amendment will be re-presented by Lord Alli on March 2. We urge every peer who believes in spiritual independence, or in non-discrimination, to support it.


Iain McLean
Professor of Politics, Oxford


Diarmaid MacCulloch
Professor of the History of the Church, Oxford

The Right Rev David Stancliffe
Bishop of Salisbury


The Right Rev John Gladwin
Former Bishop of Chelmsford


Lord Harries of Pentregarth
Former Bishop of Oxford


The Right Rev Bill Ind
Former Bishop of Truro


The Right Rev Peter Selby
Former Bishop of Worcester


The Right Rev Kenneth Stevenson
Former Bishop of Portsmouth

FiF take soundings on the Ordinariate

Forward in Faith have launched a website asking people to show their interest in joining an Ordinariate - in other words they are looking to see how many people might be interested in taking up the Pope's offer of joining the Catholic Church under special terms for ex-Anglicans.

Its an interesting move, as they're just asking people to express an interest without committing to anything.  Looks like they're trying to understand the numbers involved before they commit to anything formally.  This is either FiF being a bit political and looking to size up their numbers in advance of a negotiation over the terms of exit with the CofE, or it is simply an organisational move to work out the best way forward for those who want to participate.  Or perhaps a bit of both.

Faith and the election

More interesting stuff from Theos the 'public theology think tank'.  They have commissioned an opinion poll from ComRes into voting intentions and religion, which makes some fascinating reading.

There should be a couple of health warnings on the detailed analysis, however.  The first is that the more you drill down into a survey the less statistically reliable it becomes, as you are dividing your sample down.  The second is that this is a moving target.  Just as political opinion polls vary from day to day, so do polls asking people to define which religion they belong to.  As such, one which combines the two must be seen within that context.

Now to the interesting stuff.

• 57% of Muslims would vote Labour, although only 31% of Muslims are 'certain' to vote
• Labour seen as most friendly to Islam by miles (36% compared with 10% for Conservative and 7% for Lib Dems), and most friendly to 'faith' overall
• Christians most certain to vote of any religion
• Lib Dems do best with those who say they do not belong to any religion
• Conservatives do best amongst Christians

Ekklesia pick out a few other interesting points, which seem to show that religious people have pretty much the same kinds of concerns and voting intentions as everyone else.  Their analysis is well worth a read.  Mouse thinks that some of the detail is also interesting, however.

Mouse reckons that Labour has consciously courted the religious vote for some time, and it seems to have paid off in terms of getting them an image of being 'friendly' towards faith.  However it doesn't seem to have translated into any more votes, as the overall voting intentions for all religious people are pretty much the same as the overall population.

Latest standings on the competitive anti-Pope petitions

Mouse reported a while ago that the National Secular Society and the British Humanist Association had both launched campaigns against the Pope's visit to Britain later this year.  The BHA don't want him here at all, whilst the NSS simply want the government to pay.

It now seems that a third entry into the 'who hates the Pope most' competition has emerged.  Peter Tatchell has launched a petition on the No. 10 website.  So far this has attracted 3,691 signatures.  What's really interesting is that the NSS have shut their own petition and are now directing people towards the No.10 petition.  This seems odd on the face of it, as their petition had over 22,000 signatories when they closed it.

Mouse suggested at the time that a No.10 petition would have more credibility, as there is some validation to make sure signatories are real people and that people can only sign once.  Mouse's guess is that the original NSS petition had lost all credibility after it featured in an American atheist blog and the number of signatures surged.  On top of all the obvious joke signatories, like Donald Duck and the Pope himself, it meant that it was impossible to tell how many of the signatories were real UK residents.

So, in terms of numbers the NSS were top with an unreliable 22,000 odd, followed by Peter Tatchell's petition with 3,691 and the BHA are lagging behind with their Facebook group of 1,309 members.

Indian textbook features Jesus with a cigarette and beer

While some Christians in Britain were getting far too hot under the collar because a couple of Sky News reporters were rather ignorant of the Ash Wednesday traditions, Christians in India were shocked that publishers would allow an image of Christ smoking a cigarette and drinking beer to make it into a school text book.

The text books were not mandatory for schools, but nevertheless Christian leaders in the country were pretty upset at the image being used. The Archbishop of Shillong, Archdiocese Dominic Jala, said: “We protest the manner in which Jesus is depicted in the textbooks,” adding that the matter would be taken up at the national level.  The Indian Catholic Youth Movement, Shillong Archdiocese, also condemned the printing of “demeaning” picture of Jesus Christ in school textbooks.

The explanation from the publishers appears to be that designers took the picture from the internet and noone else seemed to notice that it might be insulting to Christians.

What is rather more surprising is that this happened in the state of Meghalaya which is 70% Christian.  That is a higher proportion that would call themselves Christian in the UK, so this gaffe seems rather bigger than the one which took place on Sky News.

The BBC report that the government has confiscated the text books and is considering legal action against the publishers.  It is rather surprising that they have acted to swiftly and decisively in this case, when the government seems powerless to act against the violence that has been targeted at Christians in other parts of the country.

Say One For Me - new CofE online prayer service

There are quite a few online prayer services.  Mouse is sure that the the good old CofE are aware of this.  But that hasn't stopped them launching their very own sayoneforme prayer website.

The Lent initiative has involved various bishops hitting the streets and picking up prayer requests.  The Archbishop of York is perhaps the most prominent.

Unfortunately the website has not quite captured the public imagination just yet.  As Mouse writes this there have been just 301 prayer requests made on the site.

It may be the fact that the site does very little which is the reason for the tiny take-up so far, or perhaps just because of limited publicity.  This is not helped by the fact that Say One for Me is a Bing Crosby film, so the site comes pretty low down the Google rankings when you search for it.

Whatever the reason Mouse prefers the personal approach to prayer, so well done to those Bishops who have hit the streets.  In Mouse's experience very few people will say no if you offer to pray with them.  Of course you shouldn't try this if you are a nurse, as it may send you straight to a disciplinary.

In the spirit of unity with the Methodist Church, Mouse should also mention the new prayer texting service available from the Methodists.  Text PRAYNOW to 82088 and you will receive weekly prayer texts.  Nice one.

Prince Charles endorses the Alpha Course

Mouse is occasionally irritated when he hears the likes of the National Secular Society referring to the Alpha Course as 'fundamentalist' or 'extremist'.  It is not.  The fact that it originated from the good old CofE and is one of a tiny handful of things that is embraced by all major Christian denominations means that it cannot be anything but mainstream.

The latest celebrity endorsement (and this is in a very long line) comes from none other than Prince Charles.  The future head of the Church of England was visiting St Mellitus Theological College, which is attached to Holy Trinity Brompton, the church which started and continues to drive the Alpha Course.  He described Alpha as 'enormously encouraging', expressing admiration for HTB's Nicky Gumbel, the vicar who pioneered the Alpha Course.

Well done Your Highness.  Ruth Gledhill describes Charles as a 'devout member' of the Church, although he has tended towards a private faith in the past.  Mouse hopes he will be willing to reveal a little more of his own faith in the future.

Friday round up

Here's my round up from the blogosphere.  Ten of the best from the blogs this week.

1. Ruth Gledhill on the Methodist offer to die in order to rise again

2. Pete Phillips on the Methodist view on the talk of potential union with the good old CofE, and the President and Vice President of the Methodist Conference on what they really said to the General Synod

3. Andrew Brown on whether science and atheism are compatible

4. Bishop Alan Wilson on fasting

5. Damian Thompson reckons the Anglican exodus has begun (Mouse does not agree)

6. Faith World on the process of making Pius XVI a saint

7. The Jubilee Centre blog on assisted suicide

8. Bishop Nick Baines on the Secularist of the Year

9. David Keen takes a blog break and tells the rest of us some home truths

10. Jonny Baker on the CMS community

Lay off Kay - a mistake anyone could have made

Sky News's Kay Burley has come in for quite a bit of stick for her gaffe yesterday.  Whilst looking at footage of Joe Biden, Burley and her fellow Sky News colleague Greg Milam wonder what the cause of the strange mark on Biden's forehead could be.  Has he walked into a door?  Did he slip on ice whilst he was at the Winter Olympics?  In fact, Biden is a Catholic and the mark is ash marked on his head as part of the traditional Ash Wednesday celebration.

No doubt some will ask what reaction Burley would have had if this cultural gaffe had been made with any other religion.  And no doubt they would have been in for a lot of trouble.  But the reality is that they were merely voicing what many people would have been thinking.

Mouse himself did not grow up in a Christian household and could easily have made the same mistake himself.  So Mouse says Lay Off Kay.  It could have been anyone.

The smallest exodus in history? Australian Anglicans accept Pope's offer to convert

Damian Thompson hails the decision by Forward in Faith Australia to set up an Ordinariate within the Catholic Church as the start of the 'exodus' from the Anglican Church.  If it is, its a pretty small start.  Either that or its the smallest exodus in history.

The Telegraph report that FiF Australia has "up to" 200 members, but that not all will be joining the Ordinariate.  That's out of a total membership of the Anglican Church of Australia of over 3.7m.

Thompson also comments on a leaked email received by the Guardian revealing the 'cloak and dagger' machinations which have involved English bishops form the CofE by-passing the Catholic bishops in England in their dealings with the Catholic Church.  What is more interesting than the rather dull political developments is the admission in the leaked emails that the 'project' will 'start in small ways'.

These two developments both seem to confirm Mouse's initial reaction that fewer people would take up the Pope's offer than most media commentators were speculating.  Not only that, but it has now been four months since the Pope made his offer, and the only members of the Anglican Communion to have taken it up are a handful of Australians.  Whilst Mouse is certain that some in England will follow, it seems rather odd that they have not already announced their intention to do so.

Mouse will remind his readers of the initial reaction to the Pope's offer from Bishop John Broadhurst, who commented, "What Rome has done is offer exactly what the Church of England has refused. Indeed it has offered the requests of 'Consecrated Women' with the completion of its ecumenical hopes. We all need now to ask the question 'is this what we want?' For some of us I suspect our bluff is called!".

Quite.

Pope to appear on R4 Thought for The Day?

The Guardian is reporting that Mark Thompson, Head of the BBC, is personally in talks with the Vatican to arrange for the Pope to feature in the Radio 4 Thought for the Day slot.  The idea is that this will coincide with his visit to the UK later this year.

Mouse reckons it would be great to hear Pope Benedict on the slot.  The BBC Trust recently decided to keep the slot religious in nature, on the grounds that this was its distinctiveness, although secular groups continue to oppose the two and a half-minute religious interlude in the daily morning schedule.

Ouija board game available from Hasbro

Mouse is rather surprised to see that Hasbro, makers of Monopoly and many other family games, has started marketing a ouija board game.  Mouse is told that it is not easy to get in the UK, and that it has initially been launched in the US.  This seems an even unfriendlier market to Mouse, but what does he know about board games.

This has caused a bit of a fuss, with some claiming that it is a dangerous flirtation with the occult.  Mouse's view is that it is probably not a healthy thing to encourage children to use, however, it is common for kids to play with this sort of thing.  If they learn nothing else from the Hasbro version it should be that they are idiots for paying $19.99 for the game when they can just as easily write the alphabet and 'yes' / 'no' on a big piece of paper and turn a tumbler upside down.

Mouse would also point out that the first patent on a ouija board was for use as a family board game.  Apparently it was meant to tap into your unconscious, and it was only later that mediums began claiming to be able to speak to spirits through the method.

Update: Thanks to Tony Allen for commenting on Mouse's Facebook page to point out the Facebook Group campaigning to stop Toys 'R Us from selling this product in the UK, and the petition on the No. 10 website.  At the time of this update the Facebook group has over 1,500 members, whilst the No. 10 petition has 185 signatories.

Woman teaches men that they should not be taught by a woman

There was a bit of a fuss last week about a church which had upset some of its members by putting something in the parish newsletter about the role of women.  The congregation of St Nicolas, Sevenoaks, were told that women should not teach or be in authority over men and that wives should submit to their husbands.  A bit on the old fashioned side for Mouse, but not uncommon enough for him to have blogged about it at the time.

Clayboy and Peter Kirk report, however, that the piece that was put out by Rev Angus MacLeay was taken from a publication issued by the conservative evangelical organisation Reform on the role of women in Church.  The jaw-dropping irony is that the Reform leaflet is written by a woman, Carrie Sandon, who is a member of Reform's Council.

So that leaves male readers of the leaflet with something of a dilemma.  Presumably they should not read this leaflet at all, and it should carry a warning that it should only be read by women and children.  Men would need to receive this instruction from other men.

Top 10 albums from the Vatican

Surely not.  Really?  No, I don't believe it. L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, has listed its top 10 albums of all time.  Make of it what you will, but Mouse does not believe for a second that this is on the Pope's iPod.  Or that the Pope has an iPod, for that matter.  The results seem like a pretty middle-aged middle-class selection to Mouse.

Mouse supposes that the key question is how many of these do you own.  Mouse will confess to just three.

1. Revolver by the Beatles

2. If I Could Only Remember My Name by David Crosby

3. The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd

4. Rumours by Fleetwood Mac

5. The Nightfly by Donald Fagen

6. Thriller by Michael Jackson

7. Graceland by Paul Simon

8. Achtung Baby by U2

9. (What's the Story) Morning Glory by Oasis

10. Supernatural by Carlos Santana

Why no official response from the CofE to the Methodist Church?

Have you ever told someone you love them, then waited anxiously as they said nothing in reply?  Well the analogy is a little stretched, but Mouse is pretty surprised to have heard absolutely nothing from the good old CofE in response to the speech by David Gamble, President of the Methodist Conference, at the Church of England's General Synod last week.

In his speech, Gamble reiterated the Methodist Church's view that it was willing to cease to exist if that was in the interest of mission.  In other words, a union with the Church of England is a very real possibility.

So if you go to the News page of the good old CofE website you will find nothing in response to this.  Instead, you will find news of a new librarian at the Lambeth Palace library.  Priorities?

Now of course this is not an offer, and only a fool would expect anything to happen immediately (this is the Church of England, lets not forget).  In fact, it is a challenge to the Church of England to work towards that union itself and show similar seriousness of intent.  Which is why it is so surprising that no official statement has been made.  There has been a huge amount of discussion on Methodist blogs, but very little on the Anglican side.

Now to be fair to the good old CofE, Mouse is told that the Rt Revd Chris Cocksworth, Bishop of Coventry and Chair of the Joint Implementation Commitee for the Covenant, responded to national journalists at an informal 'huddle' at Synod.  In addition the Bishop of Leicester was alongside David Gamble on Saturday's Today Programme (you can listen for the next seven days via http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qj9z - scroll to 1 hr 55m).  However, why nothing formal or in writing?  It would be the easiest thing in the world to issue a very simple statement welcoming David Gamble's comments and reaffirming the Church's commitment to the covenant.  Can someone at Church House please get on the case?  Then we need to get down to business and re-double efforts to actually make it happen.

Are evangelicals taking over the Tory party? Of course not!

The Financial Times has decided to set some hares running.  Mouse is pretty surprised they are even discussing the subject, and is stunned that they have given it the degree of prominence that they have done, by using the cover of the Sunday Magazine to publicise it they have decided to put the issue in the headlights.  The headline - "Christian Tories rewrite party doctrine".

What's really frustrating is that the article is well researched and well written, but can't resist seeking out some controversy where none is to be found.  The vast majority of the article shows how members of the party, particularly Tim Montgomerie and Iain Duncan Smith, have pushed forward the party's thinking on many social issues.  The work of the Centre for Social Justice is prominent in the article and its influence on Conservative policies on issues such as poverty and welfare.  This is all to be applauded, and even the most hardline secularist would struggle to find a conspiracy in this.

So it is a great shame that the article leads off with conspiracy theories from an unnamed MP about other unnamed Christian Conservatives.  The fear of entryism by Evangelical Christians (for that is the only kind which could engender fear) organising to take over the party ruin the article by stealing the focus early on.

Cranmer is outraged about this, and asks what would happen if these sorts of things were said about any group other than Christians.  He has a point, but he doesn't mention the vast majority of the article, which points to how Christians have been at the front of the modernisation of the Tory party and have pushed it forward in a progressive direction.

It seems to Mouse that this is a great shame.  A really positive article is spoilt by the desire for a bit of controversy and a racy headline.

Reflections on General Synod from Synod member Justin Brett

The final blog post on this week's session of the Church of England General Synod comes from synod member Justin Brett.

The views expressed below are those of Justin, and may not reflect the Mouse's own views.

Four things General Synod has not done

Mouse will be posting some reflections on this week's session of General Synod from honorary Mouse and Synod Member Justin Brett.  But in the mean time, it has struck Mouse that this session will be remembered for four things which the Church of England did not do:

1. Synod did not pass legislation on women bishops.  This one was widely known before-hand, however, that did not stop reporters identifying 'new splits' on the issue.

2. Synod did not officially recognised the Anglican Church of North America.  The ACNA is the break-away group in the US and Canada who have broken away from the official Episcopal Church.  A private members motion was brought to announce the Church of England's desire to be in communion with the ACNA, however, this was comprehensively rejected and an amended motion overwhelmingly passed which recognised the ACNA's desire to stay in the Anglican Communion, but pointed to the formal processes within the Communion to allow this to happen.

3. Synod did not criticise the BBC for its religious programming.  Whilst a motion did express concern over religious programming, references to the BBC were removed (wisely in Mouse's opinion).

4. The fourth thing was something done by another Church.  The President of the Methodist Church livened the whole thing up by reminding the Church of England what Christian unity is really all about.  The most exiting point of this synod came from an 'outsider', who graciously pointed out that the Methodist Church would happily close itself down if that would advance the gospel.

Church staff to go on strike?

Martin Beckford is reporting in the Telegraph that the Public & Commercial Services Union will be balloting its members who are church staff over strike action.  The dispute is over a pay freeze, and Martin is reporting that they are threatening to picked Lambeth Palace and other high profile locations to attract maximum media attention.

However, there are only 100 members of church staff who are members of this Union.  They can only hope that this strike action will either embarrass the Church leadership into a change of attitude, or make them feel guilty.  They cannot be hoping that the impact of these 100 leaving their posts for 24 hours will bring the Church to administrative crisis.  Either that or they are simply hoping to generate some publicity for the P&CSU.

Whatever the reasons, Mouse thinks it is a misjudged move.  Mouse understands that a pay freeze is painful (he himself had one this year).  However, nobody works for the church for the money.  People up and down the country have been losing their jobs and taking pay cuts and this news breaks just hours after Synod has voted to require clergy to work longer for their pensions to fill a gaping hole in the pension fund.  Anyone who opens the papers knows that the Church's financial position is precarious.

Mouse would be surprised if these 100 members of the P&CSU vote to allow the union their moment in the spotlight by voting for industrial action.  As always, Mouse will keep you posted.

Friday round up

Here's my round up from the blogosphere.  Ten of the best from the blogs this week.  This one took some restraint to limit synodical input to just two entries.

1. Andrew Brown wonders why Synod is so boring

2. Ruth Geldhill on the most exciting news to come out of Synod in ages

3. Cranmer on funeral pyres

4. Bishop Alan Wilson on the C4 series on the Bible

5. FaithWorld on whether being religious makes you healthier

6. Paul Walker on introverts in church

7. Graham Tomlin on pews (and why they are not good)

8. Evangelist Changing on 20-30 year-olds in church (and their absence)

9. Clayboy on the preachers fallacy (and when to turn on your claptrap detector)

10. Dave Bish on God's permanent good mood

Three cheers for the Methodists! Door open to full union.

And who said Synod was boring?  Members of the Church of England's General Synod must have woken up with a jolt when they heard these words from the President and the Vice-President of the Methodist Conference, Revd David Gamble and Dr Richard Vautrey, in their address to Synod this morning

Methodists approach the Covenant with the Church of England in the spirituality of that Covenant prayer. So when we say to God, "let me have all things let me have nothing," we say it by extension to our partners in the Church of England as well. We are prepared to go out of existence not because we are declining or failing in mission, but for the sake of mission. In other words we are prepared to be changed and even to cease having a separate existence as a Church if that will serve the needs of the Kingdom.

What wonderful, gracious words.  All those writers who have had their 'Anglican Communion on the brink of implosion' headlines on standby for this Synod will have to think of a new one.

Mouse is delighted.  Rowan Williams should bite the extended Methodist hand off, and seize this unique opportunity.  Do not delay.  Issue a statement immediately welcoming these warm words and committing to work towards full union as soon as possible.

Ruth Gledhill points out that the Methodist Church is fully inclusive of women in leadership positions, but don't have bishops.  As the day when women are admitted to the episcopate draws ever closer (2012 is the current bookies favourite) the theory is that the Methodist Church would accept bishops if they are fully inclusive.

Whatever the details, Mouse cannot think of a better good news story right now than the formal union of the Methodist and Anglican Churches.  Full credit to David Gamble for putting his neck out on this one. There will undoubtedly be those who don't like the idea (there always are) but this is truly an inspired move.

Possibly the best of the initial reactions comes from Pete Phillips, Secretary of the Faith and Order Committee of the Methodist Church.  He points out that this is an articulation of what has always been in the covenant, although this is self evident from the opening line of the quote above.  What is new, of course, is the highly public articulation of the seriousness of the intent.  The President and Vice President themselves have now written about it on their blog.

What is needed is a serious reply.  The good old CofE will have to understand what is needed to make this happen.

Reform's threatening letter - who didn't sign it

Earlier this week Reform, the organisation for conservative evangelicals who are opposed to the admission of women to the episcopate within the Church of England (amongst other things) issued an open letter to the Bishops of the Church of England and members of the General Synod.  Mouse did not approve of the threatening tone, however, Matt Wardman has pointed out that a few names appear to be missing from Reforms letter.

Mouse has therefore compared the list of signatories with Reform's Trustees and Council Members (from their website).  The following Trustees and Council members are not listed as signatories on yesterday's letter:

Rev Tim Davies
Rev Paul Dawson
Rev David Holloway (Trustee)
Rev Bob Marsden
Rev Paul Perkin
Rev David Phillips
Rev Carrie Sandom
Rev Caroline West

What does this mean?

One of the signatories, Julian Mann, has commented on why he signed the letter, and has speculated that others have not signed as they felt it was 'threatening'.  He does also point out that some may simply have been unavailable at the time.

A couple of names jump out from the list of non-signatories.  Paul Perkin is vicar of St Mark's Battersea Rise, and chief organiser for the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans UK, and would be expected to be at the forefront of Reform's efforts in general.  The absence of David Holloway, of Jesmond Parish Church, also raises an eyebrow as one of the foremost leaders of the Reform movement.

Whilst it is possible that some of these people were simply 'unavailable' it seems to Mouse that there must be some of the leaders of Reform who simply didn't agree with the letter.  Good on them.  Mouse did not like the threatening nature of the letter either, and is glad that some have refused to sign up to this tactic.

For the avoidance of doubt - the CofE did not 'recognise' the ACNA yesterday

Some rather over-excited headlines yesterday seemed to be saying that the Church of England had officially 'recognised' the Anglican Church of North America, the break-away church in the US and Canada which has split from the official Episcopal Church, largely over the issue of sexuality.

At the Church of England's General Synod yesterday a private members motion was brought which asked that Synod voice its desire to be in communion with the ACNA.  This was rejected.  In its place, an amendment (brought by the Bishop of Bristol, Mike Hill) replaced the entire motion with the text below.  The closest this comes to the original motion is where they 'recognise and affirm the desire of those who have formed the Anglican Church in North America to remain within the Anglican family'.

This is a long way from any kind of official acceptance from the Church of England.

From Mouse's perspective the issue has never been whether the Anglican Communion wants the ACNA to stay in.  The issue is whether they are prepared to do so, when other members of the Communion press ahead with the ordination of openly gay bishops.  The ACNA's luke warm response to the motion makes Mouse wonder whether they have entirely lost interest in the Anglican Communion.

This synod will soon become famous for the things it has not done.  It has not passed the legislation on women bishops and it has not tossed its hat in with the ACNA.

The Church Times blog has all the details.


That this Synod, aware of the distress cause by recent divisions within the Anglican churches of the United States of America and Canada,

"(a) recognise and affirm the desire of those who have formed the Anglican Church in North America to remain within the Anglican family;

(b) acknowledge that this aspiration, in respect both of relations with the Church of England and membership of the Anglican Communion, raises issues which the relevant authorities of each need to explore further; and

(c) invite the Archbishops to report further to the Synod in 2011."

God and the Prime Ministers - every PM since the 60s has been a professing Christian

Fascinating piece in the Guardian about Prime Ministers and faith.  They argue that 'Far from not doing God, every Prime Minister since the 1960s has been a professing Christian'.

In a desperately short hand summary Antonio Weiss cites the following examples:

In his official biography, long after any need to pay "lip-service" to belief would seem necessary, Harold Macmillan claimed that: "I go to Communion as long as I can ... I reach for the Bible whenever I can." Wilson was brought up as a Baptist, at university joined the evangelical Oxford Group, and in 1963 declared: "I have religious beliefs and they very much affected my political views." According to Douglas-Home's biographer, his "Christianity was of the heart ... a matter of personal." Heath claimed in his autobiography that: "My Christian faith provided foundations for my political beliefs", and Callaghan was a former Sunday school teacher. Major appeared rather hesitant when discussing his faith on Radio 4, but still declared: "I do believe. I don't pretend to understand all the complex parts of Christian theology, but I simply accept it."

What is most interesting for Mouse is why the Blair era made religion an issue for political leaders.  Brown has been rather more discrete in discussing his faith, reserving comment to statements about how his religious upbringing have given him a 'moral compass' and shaped his political views.

Cameron seems more comfortable discussing his faith, and hopes this normalises the subject somewhat.  It seems to Mouse rather bigoted to suggest that religious belief makes a politician either inherently better or worse as a potential leader.  Mouse would much rather they were simply open and honest about their beliefs than feeling the need to either pay lip service to 'faith communities' and play up their faith when it is not really there, or equally to hide their beliefs away.

No threats please, we're Anglican

Could everyone with an opinion on women bishops please pause, take a deep breath and calm down.  Right, now lets just think about this sensibly.

Last month, David Keen rightly predicted that yesterday's headlines would be all about Women Bishops.  What David didn't know at that time was that the debate on women bishops scheduled to take place at yesterday's General Synod would not happen, due to a delay from the Revision Committee, which was due to present the legislation required yesterday.  Instead, all we heard was what we already knew - that the process would go ahead and would be debated at the next session of Synod.

So why on earth do we hear about a "New split on women bishops in the Church of England" from the Guardian?  Well the reason is the statement issued by Reform with the signatures of 50 vicars attached.  In the letter, and worse in the attached press statement, they threaten the church with dire consequences if they fail to make 'adequate' provision for those who oppose women bishops.

Mouse does not approve.

The only possible effect of this letter is to make everyone outside the church think that it is a deeply divided an outdated institution.  These arguments have been heard before, and the correct place for them now is with the Revision Committee.

However, Mouse was most stuck by the hollowness of the threats made.  There was no threat to leave, as this letter is from evangelicals who could not contemplate taking up the Pope's offer of a new home.  Instead the threat is that evangelical parishes would stop encouraging ordinations in the good old CofE, set up their own trust funds to fund their own ministries and potentially even stop paying the parish share.

To back up these threats they claim to have 'encouraged' 180 ordinands in the past 10 years, and paid £22m to Diocesan funds.  Big numbers.  But wait a minute.  Over 10 years, that's just 18 ordinands per year out of 50 parishes.  How they came to this number is not explained, and since the wording talks of 'encouraged' for ordination, rather than 'sponsored' we can only assume that each of the 50 has been asked to dredge their memories for the past 10 years about who they have 'encouraged'.  It is a fair guess that many of these people would have heard God's call to ordained ministry without the intervention of these 50 vicars, and a reasonable assumption that many will continue to do so in future.  And £22m across 50 parishes over 10 years is just £44,000 per parish per year (assuming Reform have brought forward their figures to a present value - after the effects of inflation).  After training, stipend, pension contributions and other costs, that probably means that these 50 parishes contributed less than they cost over this period.  What a hollow threat.

We really would be better off without this type of intervention.

Now Mouse will undoubtedly be accused of not understanding the level of feeling amongst those whose reading of the Bible does not allow them to submit to the leadership of women in good conscience.  But that is not true.  Mouse simply feels that threatening to bring the whole ship down is not a sensible way to express those feelings, particularly when timing these announcements to get maximum publicity, and do maximum damage.

David Keen's predictions for today - pensions.  Keep your eyes peeled.

The Anglican Church in Zimbabwe

Mouse has commented before on the situation with the Anglican Church in Zimbabwe, and challenged the Church of England to be more visibly supportive.  Today the Archbishops of Canterbury and York reflect on the contribution of the Church there in a joint article for the Guardian, marking a year since they launched their appeal for Zimbabwe.

The Archbishop's appeal has raised over half a million pounds, which is great.  More importantly the good old CofE has been supporting the Anglican Church in Zimbabwe which has been under terrible strain.  Please do read the Archbishop's article.

Also marking the anniversary is a photographic exhibition in Southwark Cathedral.  Mouse hopes to pop along at some point soon.

Cameron tells Church of England to modernise and back equality and gay rights

Ruth Gledhill reports on David Cameron's interview with Attitude magazine.  She quotes the following from the interview:

'Do you think that the right of gay children to have a safe education trumps the right of faith schools to teach that homosexuality is a sin?'

He answered: 'Basically yes - that's the short answer to that, without getting into a long religious exegesis. I mean, I think, yes. I think..... [long pause] ..... I don't want to get into an enormous row with the Archbishop here. But I think the Church has to do some of the things that the Conservative Party has been through - sorting this issue out and recognising that full equality is a bottom line full essential.'

David Cameron is an Anglican who worships at a liberal High Anglican church in Kensington.

Now, the obvious comparison is with Tony Blair's comments made in an interview for the same magazine where he challenged the Catholic Church to do exactly the same things.  There a few differences with the two situations, not least the fact that Tony Blair has only been a Catholic for 15 minutes or so, and it makes you wonder why he converted.

As far as Cameron's interview goes, Mouse doubts it will have much impact - either on the Church's policies on equality or on David Cameron's standing with Anglican voters and the Church leadership.  It is hardly a surprise that a politician being interviewed in a gay magazine will come out for equality.  What's more, the process that Cameron describes in the Conservative Party was a much broader modernisation than simply changing policy on equality.  Whilst a few in the Church of England wish it to remain exactly as it was in the 16th century, most recognise that it is in desperate need of modernisation if it is to pull out of the slow but steady decline it has been in for decades.

Wordpress designers - chance to win an iPad

The good folk over at Voxbiblia have asked Mouse to draw their latest competition to your attention, and he is happy to do so.

They are hoping to build up a good stack of free blog templates available for download by churches and Christian organiations, so have launched a competition to design them.  First prize is an iPad, and second prize and iPod Touch.

Here's the blurb:


Aim:

Voxbiblia has been hunting for ways to equip churches and Christian bloggers with tools to spread the Word. The 2010 Voxbiblia WordPress Theme Design Competition aims to do just that – To generate free templates for churches/bloggers to build up a nifty website easily.

There are THREE categories where you can compete in:

Category 1: The Pro

In this category, we’re looking for entries with professional/mature looking Christian themes that are suitable for church websites and church member blogs.


Category 2: Funky Designer

Here we’re looking for funky and cool themes that youth and young adults alike are proud to show off! Use your imagination, just keep it clean!


Category 3: Kids for Christ

Prizes go to the best design for little tots! Make it cute, cheery and full of love

Prizes up for grabs!

To encourage everyone to get started on this competition, Voxbiblia is sponsoring TWO prizes for EACH category! There’s no limit to the number of entries you can send in, but you can only win one prize per category – if you’re that good!

1st prize for each category: 16 GB Wi-Fi iPad

2nd prize for each category: 8 GB iPod Touch

Voxbiblia will also be sponsoring one free audio Bible (download) for every entry submitted! This is our way of expressing our thanks for the hard work that you have put in! All this, as well as the webfame from getting your designs viewed, posted and downloaded for use in websites all around the digital world!

The Cherie Blair kerfuffle

The National Secular Society have whipped up a storm, accusing Cherie Blair of practicing Cheria Law.  The accusation is that she treated a convict leniently in his sentence because he was religious. 

Articles in the Daily Mail (inevitably), Independent and pretty much everywhere else followed, all quoting the same paragraphs used by the NSS in their complaint to show how Cherie had let a man off lightly because he was 'religious'.

But hold on a minute.

Here's what the NSS actually said:

We are concerned that Mrs Blair’s remarks indicate that she might have applied a different sentence if the defendant had not been a religious person. We think it appropriate that the matter be looked into and, if necessary, guidance issued to judges to tell them that making sentencing decisions on the basis of a person’s piety or lack of it, is not acceptable.

Now call Mouse an old pedant if you want to, but they don't actually say that they think the man got the wrong sentence.  For Mouse this is the crucial issue.  What they seem to be saying is that if the man had not been religious he might not have got the same treatment.  That is not quite the same as saying that because this man was religious he got the wrong treatment.  The difference obviously being that the former is an accusation that discrimination may occur in the future, whilst the latter is an accusation that discrimination has taken place in this instance.  The distinction is subtle, I'll grant you, but crucial.

As far as Mouse can tell, Mrs Blair applied the sentencing guidelines correctly, and the man in question received the right sentence for a first offense, and as such no discrimination can possibly be shown to have taken place.  Her words are certainly odd, possibly wrong, but we're not given any context to work with so this conclusion is difficult to draw.  However, to accuse her of abusing her position of a judge and applying overly-lenient sentences on the basis of her personal biases is a tremendously serious allegation to be throwing about.  The key thing would not be the words used in the summing up, but the actual sentence given for the offense committed.

Mouse would also point out that he has not been able to find any first hand reports of the case.  The court records are not publicly available.  The earliest source is a local newspaper report, which does not carry the quote which forms the basis of the NSS complaint to the Office for Judicial Complaints.  It seems rather unlikely that the NSS were sat in the courtroom waiting for some words of religious discrimination to come out of the judge's mouth.  Furthermore, we've not had any public statements from any of the protagonists in this mini-drama, so where do these words come from?  And how reliable are they?

What's more, we know virtually nothing of the details of the case.  Every case has unique factors which form part of the sentencing decision made by the judge.  To pick out a single sentence from the judge's summing up and then accuse them of misusing their position seems pretty reckless stuff to Mouse.

Mouse hopes that the NSS have done their homework on this one.  If they have not received official court transcripts and taken independent legal advice on the appropriateness of the sentence applied, then this is a terribly misjudged complaint.

Mouse fears that this has all the hallmarks of a publicity stunt.  And it has worked.  For now.

General Synod preview Part II, from Synod member Justin Brett

Second part of Church of England Synod member Justin Brett's preview of next week's General Synod. The first part focused on the more headline-grabbing items on the agenda.  The second installment looks at the rest of agenda.

Justin is a Latin teacher and a Lay Member of General Synod for the Diocese of Oxford. You can find more posts by him on the General Synod Blog and also on his own blog The Dodgy Liberal. The title of the latter might tell you something about his church-related views.

The views below are Justin's own views, and may not represent the views of the Mouse.



I have sometimes heard it said that in the Gospels, while Our Lord has very little to say on the subject of sex, he has a surprisingly large amount to say on the subject of money. Although you won't guess it from the media coverage, a similar thing could be said about Synod - especially this time around. The sexuality issues I have written about already are prompted by Private Member's Motions, but the money talk is mostly prompted by the Church secretariat. The Church of England has a hole in its pension fund, and it doesn't know how to fill it. Part of the trouble, though, is that the hole is currently not real, but projected.

The scheme that is causing all the problems has only been in operation since 1998 - all pensions earned prior to that date are paid by the Church Commissioners. Obviously, this new scheme at the moment is not paying out much money at all - it isn't having to pay many pensions yet - so its income greatly exceeds its expenditure and it is building up capital. The trouble is that the surplus it is currently generating is very much less than the surplus that the actuaries say it needs if it is to meet all its future obligations. Gone are the days when most people only drew their pensions for a few years and obligingly dropped dead - even retiring at 68 or 70, a large number of the scheme's current members will be expecting to draw pensions for twenty years or so after retirement. That puts a heavy burden on a scheme which has to guarantee a certain level of pay out, and the net result is that dioceses are currently being asked to make payments to the pension fund equivalent to almost half a priest's annual stipend. The Church is not alone in facing this sort of problem, which is why almost all similar defined benefit schemes - or final salary schemes - are closing.

(A short diversion about pension schemes at this point. Essentially they fall into two types. Either the amount you put into the pot is defined, the money is invested over time, and you get whatever you get at the end of it - defined contribution, uncertain level of pension at the end - or the amount you get at the end is defined, usually in terms of a fraction of your final salary, which means that the amount you have to pay in varies according to hugely complicated and rather pessimistic actuarial calculations - defined benefit, uncertain (and high) level of contributions. The Church's scheme is the second type.)

So why keep the Church of England's scheme open? And for that matter, how can we afford it? A number of debates in the coming week will touch on this subject. There is some tinkering at the edges to be done - some has already been decided upon, other changes may be made next week. None is particularly major, all will leave future pensioners slightly worse off or bearing more risk. It has been left to an ordinary member of synod to put in an amendment to encourage us to think the unthinkable and close the current scheme, replacing it with a defined contribution model.

This whole situation causes me personally a great deal of doubt and difficulty. We ask our priests to dedicate their lives to the Church, and in return we pay them virtually nothing. Nevertheless they do at least have the prospect of a guaranteed level of income - up to 2/3 of the virtually nothing we pay them - when they retire. What does it say about the way we value their sacrifice if we take away even that certainty? And yet some dioceses are currently having severe trouble meeting the bills for stipends and pension costs, and if the contributions increase as forecast they will have to reduce the numbers of priests they employ in order to meet the cost of the pensions of the remainder. Which is frankly mad. I don't have a solution to this one, but I do know that we badly need your prayers on this dilemma.

So what else are we going to be doing at Synod? Quite a lot of legislative business - none of it particularly earth-shattering, but necessary none the less. There does seem to be a lot of it, but in comparison to the obscene quantity of lawyer fodder generated by Parliament on a daily basis it is really quite restrained. However, there are also some more obviously religious items. There are some additions to the Lectionary to be debated, and one member has already submitted amendments to the effect that there is too much from the Apocrypha there and not enough from the canonical books of the Bible. A Diocesan Synod motion will invite us to consider the importance of the Bible in the light of the forthcoming 400th birthday of the Authorised Version, and there will be a debate about the compatibility of Science and Christian belief. I am rather looking forward to that last motion. Given the huge amount of free publicity for Christianity provided by Richard Dawkins recently, it seems a sensible time to be thinking about these issues. If the debate goes well, it should provide not only intellectual stimulation but also theological stimulation and questioning, and that can only be a good thing.

Without a doubt this is going to be a busy and diverse Synod. We are going to come head to head with a number of difficult issues, and there is the possibility that some of what we do could have considerable significance not only for the Church of England but for the Communion as a whole, so this rather long ramble ends with a simple plea. Please keep us in your prayers over the next few days, and pray particularly that all of us listen with an open mind to each other, and seek for God's direction in all that we do.

Once again, thank you to the Church Mouse for his invitation (which I fear I may have overstayed) and thank you to all of you in advance for your prayers.

Controversy over plans to convert cinema into a church

When Mouse read this story in the Evening Standard he thought it was an interesting role reversal.  Normally we read of local protests to stop churches being converted into flats, health spas and the like.  Good on them, thought the Mouse.

Then he started using Google to find out more.

The building concerned is Waltham Forest's Grade II* listed EMD Cinema.  There appear to be some conflicting reports on the history of this one, but  it seems that it has stood empty for many years and was purchased by the pentecostal Universal Church of the Kingdom of God with the hope of converting it into a place of worship and community centre.

So the first controversy is amongst those who think it would be a shame to lose the Grade II* listed cinema and hope it can be returned to its original purpose.  Iain Duncan Smith is the latest to join the campaign.

But hold on a minute.  Is this the same Universal Church of the Kingdom of God which was named in the Victoria Climbie inquiry?  This is the church which had organised a service to cast out her demons, tragically timed for the very day she died as a result of dreadful abuse.  In the inquiry into her death, Pastor Alvaro Lima said that he suspected abuse, but took no action.  In fact the UCKG has been accusing of being a cult, and is 'controversial' to say the least.

Campaigners argue that the only reason the cinema closed is because UCKG bought the site for above the market rate then closed it down.  So this doesn't seem to be the good news story of 'church rescues derelict building' after all.  Mouse will keep looking.

At last! CofE ditches shares in mining company for ethical reasons

Campaigners will be jubilant.  At last some evidence that there is substance to the good old CofE's claim to have an ethical investment policy.

The CofE had been under pressure for some time for its holdings in Vedanta, a controversial mining company.  Ekklesia have plenty of details on their activities.  Mouse is really pleased with the statement from the CofE, not only because they have acted, but because they have essentially done exactly what they always claimed they would do.  They tried to change the company's ways, using their position as shareholder to influence management, and when that failed they binned the shares.

Here's the statement from the good old CofE.

The Church Commissioners and the Church of England Pensions Board have sold their shares in Vedanta Resources plc on the advice of the Church’s Ethical Investment Advisory Group (EIAG). As a result, none of the three national investing bodies of the Church of England hold shares in the company.

The EIAG advised disinvestment because its engagement with the company had produced no substantive results and the EIAG believed that it would be inconsistent with the Church investing bodies’ joint ethical investment policy to remain invested given the EIAG’s concerns about the company’s approach to relations with the communities where it operates.

Allegations about Vedanta’s alumina refinery in Lanjigarh, Orissa, and planned bauxite mine in the nearby Niyamgiri hills came to the EIAG’s attention in June 2009. The EIAG has been examining the issues carefully since and has discussed them in a process of engagement with the company. The EIAG Secretary paid a visit to India in November 2009 to see the refinery and mine site at first hand.

EIAG Chairman, John Reynolds, said: “I am a passionate advocate for engagement with companies when we have ethical concerns. We have an excellent track record of getting our concerns heard and acted upon by the companies in which the Church investing bodies hold shares.

“We are grateful to Vedanta’s senior management for making themselves available to meet us on a number of occasions. However, after six months of engagement, we are not satisfied that Vedanta has shown, or is likely in future to show, the level of respect for human rights and local communities that we expect of companies in whom the Church investing bodies hold shares.

“In these circumstances the Ethical Investment Advisory Group advised that it would be inconsistent with the Church investing bodies’ joint ethical investment policy for the investing bodies to remain invested.”

The EIAG understands that the Indian government is still considering whether to give final approval for the mine project.

John Reynolds stressed: “We respect the Indian democratic system. Our concern is that a company registered and listed in the UK should conform to the established environmental, social and governance norms expected in the London market – or at least reassure its shareholders that it is committed to the journey.”

The EIAG will maintain contact with Vedanta. John Reynolds said: “We will be pleased to review our recommendation to the Church investing bodies if the company addresses the concerns we have raised.”